Hedge Fund

American Business Financial Services said yesterday that it completed $450 million in borrowings, easing a cash crunch at the lender specializing in high-risk mortgage loans. "We're breathing easier this afternoon," said Albert Mandia, the Center City company's executive vice president and chief financial officer. American Business Financial is paying dearly for the loans, which include $250 million from an investment group led by Lubert-Adler Management, a Philadelphia hedge fund.

Pep Boys - Manny, Moe & Jack, the ailing Philadelphia auto-parts retailer, said yesterday that it had appointed four new directors to its board. Barington Capital Group, a New York hedge fund that owns almost 10 percent of Pep Boys' stock, nominated the new directors and now controls four of 10 board seats. Former Pep Boys chief executive officer Larry Stevenson resigned July 18 under pressure from Barington. The company hired him in 2003 to revive the chain. The Canadian executive spent tens of millions of dollars revamping Pep Boys' 593 stores in 36 states, but improvements did not come fast enough for Barington.

A Boston hedge fund participated in an illegal scheme to drive down the share price of American Business Financial Services Inc., according to the bankruptcy trustee who is liquidating the former Philadelphia mortgage lender. Boston Partners Asset Management L.L.C. sent anonymous letters and posted Internet comments in a "vicious pattern of conduct" to damage ABFS, Trustee George L. Miller alleged in a civil lawsuit filed Dec. 30 in federal court in Wilmington. Cynthia Perl, a spokeswoman for Boston Partners' parent, Robeco Investment Management Inc., would not comment on the lawsuit.

President Bush yesterday endorsed the anti-drug strategy developed by his drug policy director, William J. Bennett, but refused to say where he would find the money to pay for it. With administration aides estimating that the program could cost $2 billion a year above existing anti-drug expenditures, Bush insisted during a news conference that he would not raise taxes to fund it, but acknowledged that the money would have to come out of...

Here's what some of corporate America's biggest investors are saying about the CEOs who work for them: Time Warner Inc. chief executive officer Richard Parsons has "a dismal record of mistakes" and "bloated" spending, and his board should be replaced. Sovereign Bancorp Inc. chairman Jay S. Sidhu and his board have "become the model of poor, autocratic corporate governance," and should put Sidhu's "dubious" plans for the company to a shareholder vote. Knight Ridder Inc. chairman P. Anthony Ridder and his board have "failed to achieve" even average results, and should step aside to let shareholders approve a potential sale of the company.

As Long-Term Capital Management LP began selling off assets yesterday in a frantic bid to survive, Washington lawmakers said they would investigate the potential risks to the economy and banking system from such hedge-fund operations. Rep. Jim Leach (R., Iowa), chairman of the House Banking Committee, announced that the panel would hold a hearing soon on the $3.5 billion private bailout of Long-Term Capital by a group of major banks and brokerage firms. At issue is whether Congress should consider imposing new controls on hedge funds.

They call it the retail graveyard, because no matter how hot a store may be in its heyday, odds are it won't outduel Father Time. When a retailer is down to its last stitch of mojo, it is buried like others that once might have been considered immortal (John Wanamaker, Borders, Circuit City). So it goes with one of the region's oldest remaining apparel chains: Fashion Bug. Sprung from what began as a Philadelphia retailer 70 years ago, it is on a death march to its final resting place, a casualty in the fierce competition to sell moderately priced clothes and accessories to women.

Just as Foster Friess is getting the performance of his Brandywine Fund back on track, several key managers have left his Delaware firm. The four who left wanted more say at the 26-year-old firm and greater flexibility in investing choices, something their new jobs at hedge funds give them. The executives who left were research team leaders at Friess Associates, which is based in Greenville, Del., and manages the Brandywine and Brandywine Blue Funds. Andrew Graves left to start his own hedge fund, CompassPoint Partners L.L.C.

The Pennsylvania state workers' pension system says its expensive bet on unregulated hedge funds paid off handsomely as the stock market rose last year. "After the three tough years of 2000-02, the worst bear market since the Great Depression," the State Employees' Retirement System is "back on track," chairman Nicholas V. Maiale told the state Senate Appropriations Committee yesterday in SERS' yearly budget presentation. In part, Maiale credited the hedge funds, which he said were "not risky," despite their reputation, but instead provided "returns higher than average.

State pension funds in Pennsylvania and New Jersey are among the U.S. investors bracing for losses due to bad bets on natural-gas futures by Amaranth Advisors L.L.C., one of the nation's largest hedge funds. Amaranth, which managed about $9 billion, told investors earlier this week that it expected losses of more than 35 percent because of a drop in natural-gas futures that took its trading desk by surprise. The loss is a black eye to the secretive hedge fund industry, which has boomed in recent years.